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Nolan Ryan

"the Best Arm I Have Ever Seen"

While in his junior year in high school, Ryan attracted the notice of a scout for the New York Mets, Ruff Murff. Murff said in his report on Ryan, "This skinny high school junior has the best arm I have ever seen in my life." Watson thought Murff was exaggerating until he went to see a baseball game at the Astrodome and saw that the major league pitchers there were pitching slower balls than Ryan.

Ryan graduated from Alvin High School in 1965 after helping the school team get to the state finals, and immediately signed as a player with the New York Mets. His first assignment was with the Mets' minor league team in Marion, Virginia, for which he started playing in 1966. In 1967 Ryan married Ruth. (They eventually had two sons, Reid, the eldest, Reese, and a daughter named Wendy. By 2002, Ryan and Ruth had three grandchildren, Jackson, Caroline, and Victoria.) Ryan worked his way up to the major leagues, becoming a pitcher for the Mets' major league team after three years, in 1968.

Chronology

1947	Born in Refugio, Texas
1947	Moves with his family to Alvin, Texas, forever after his home town
1954	Receives his first baseball glove
1965	Graduates from high school, signs with the New York Mets organization
1966	Plays for Mets' minor league team in Marion, Virginia
1967	Marries Ruth Holdorff
1968	Becomes a pitcher with the Mets' major league team
1969	Plays with the Mets in the 1969 World Series—the only World Series of his career
1971	Is traded to the California Angels
1973	Pitches his first two no-hitters
1979	Leaves the Angels for the Houston Astros
1988	Leaves the Astros for the Texas Rangers
1989	Strikes out his 5,000th player
1993	Retires from playing baseball
1997	Buys minor league baseball team with son Reid and other investors
1999	Elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame
1999	Elected to the All-Century Team

Related Biography: Baseball Player Reid Ryan

Nolan Ryan's eldest son, Reid Ryan, also became a pro baseball pitcher. He played in the minor leagues for three seasons before hanging up his gloves and becoming a television broadcaster for the Texas Rangers. He missed being more actively involved in the game, though, so he brokered a business deal to purchase a minor league team in Mississippi, convincing his father to join him in the venture. Nolan and Reid brought the team to Texas in 1997, changing its name to the Round Rock Express.

Reid Ryan was born in 1976 in Southern California, where he father was pitching for the California Angels. The Ryans moved back to his parents' native Texas by the time Reid was in high school, and Reid attended his parents' high school, Alvin High. There he played on the same school team on which his father got his start, as well as on the school basketball team. After graduating from high school, he went to the University of Texas on a baseball scholarship, pitching on the school team for one year.

After his freshman year at the University of Texas, Reid transferred to Texas Christian University, where by his senior year, he was the number one starter for the school baseball team, helping the team get to the NCAA regional games for the first time in several years. Coming out of school, Reid went pro, playing for the Hudson-Valley Renegades, a member of the New York-Penn League based New York State's Hudson River Valley.

After three years in the minor leagues, Reid decided to call it quits, acknowledging that he probably lacked the power to do well in the major leagues. "I could always throw strikes," he later told the Houston Chronicle's Alan Truex. "I just couldn't throw a Nolan Ryan fastball." And, "I'd have to be in the minors eight to 10 years before I'd get a cup of coffee in the big leagues."

Ryan did not enjoy living in New York. As he later told the Houston Chronicle's Neil Hohlfeld "I hated that place. I'd get cabin fever, sitting around the house. Then you'd drive to the ballpark and, no matter what time you went, there would be traffic and people getting in fights, honking, flipping people off, yelling." In addition to the shock of moving from the open spaces of his native Texas to the densest city in the country, Ryan had the stress of proving himself for a team that had a surplus of pitchers and could therefore afford to let him go if he did not perform well enough.

On top of everything else, Ryan had military duties to fulfill, requiring absences during the baseball season. "Looking back," he told Hohlfeld, "it turned out to be one of those situations where things just didn't match up. The combination of how many good, young pitchers there were and my military obligations, that made for some problems." Nevertheless, Ryan made it along with the Mets to the World Series in 1969, defeating the Orioles 4-1 to take the title. Then, the death of his father at the age of 63 in 1970 sent Ryan to a new low. He very nearly quit baseball.

Additional topics

Famous Sports StarsBaseballNolan Ryan - Two Life-long Loves Begin, "the Best Arm I Have Ever Seen", Chronology, Related Biography: Baseball Player Reid Ryan